Special Election megathread (4/30: NY-26)

[Pollster]

Folks should remember that "burn it all down" and "anti-establishment" energy is much harder to sell to Democratic voters than Republican voters because of the DNA of the parties. Republican voters have been told by Republican institutional leaders for generations now that government should be small, generally distrusted, and not take major actions ("the nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help'"). This messaging from party leadership primes their voters to be receptive to the exact types of candidates they try desperately to prevent from winning primaries, who promise to be thorns in sides, disruptors, and roadblocks.

Democrats, on the other hand, are overwhelmingly pro-government, more trustful of government's role, and want to see government power expanded particularly in the realm of social issues. Decades of federal government progress on matters of civil rights, voting rights, worker protections, and more recently public health/healthcare have hardened this feeling. Democratic voters are far more attracted to team players with big-picture goals and collaborative rhetoric.

It's clear which party's institutional leadership better understands this, and why that party has been far more successful in staving off their upstart primaries.

[Pollster]

It is notable that a lot of primary upsets/near upsets happened in NY in 2020.

I've mentioned on this board before that NY (particularly NYC) is a particularly well-suited area for grassroots primary challengers for a wide variety of reasons: rapid population movement decreases incumbency name ID advantage, highly commuter-based culture makes it easy to meet voters at natural meeting spots like subway stops and train/bus stations, geographically small districts make it easy to campaign/canvass on foot, intentionally low-turnout primaries (a relic of the Tammany Hall days) makes mobilizing a small base go an incredibly long way, extremely diverse communities with similarly diverse economies creates few truly unifying influences allowing a single-issue or highly nationalized campaign to take particularly strong hold.

[Pollster]

Allison Russo has been quietly running a very aggressive campaign for OH-15 - we're not likely to see a lot of polling here and there are no signs yet the GOP is concerned about a district that is quite Republican, but possibly worth keeping an eye on.

[Pollster]

Not gloating but still seriously confused at the "Molinaro is a strong candidate" takes.

What exactly was the evidence behind that? Just not being a 2020 election denier doesn't make you a strong candidate. Molinaro was also obviously against abortion rights even though he tried to not make it an issue. Sorry, Marc, voters made clear it was an issue.

This is hindsight bias. Molinaro is an established elected official with significant vote-getting experience in one of the key regions of the district, was well-funded and outspent his opponent, and carried the district relatively easily in an otherwise uncompetitive statewide election in a much more Democratic-leaning climate despite being badly outspent.

[Pollster]

https://twitter.com/ECaliberSeven/status/1581469260442140672

https://twitter.com/GalenMetzger1/status/1580678949817839616

This is incredibly fascinating and quite surprising honestly - should probably be its own thread for discussion.